


The Little Mole-Maid

by hamsterwoman



Category: Hamster Princess Series - Ursula Vernon
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 17:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17125361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamsterwoman/pseuds/hamsterwoman
Summary: “Hey, Wilbur! Hey, Hyacinth!” Harriet shouted, waving her sword in greeting. “Hey, cursed princess! You are cursed, aren’t you? And need me to set off on a quest to save you?”





	The Little Mole-Maid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_rck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/gifts).



> I was so tickled to see this fandom in your prompts, and I hope this little story brings you amusement! Happy Yuletide! 
> 
> The title pun makes [the fairy tale source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid) obvious, I think, so let me just say that this take on it owes more to the Disney version than Hans Christian Andersen’s. 
> 
> With thanks/blame to [redacted] for the original idea, the title, and 95% of the puns, as well as the canon and critter beta, and to M and D for beta against type.
> 
> See end notes for a spoilery critter facts addendum.

Harriet Hamsterbone was galloping around the courtyard of the castle, swinging her sword on quailback, when Mumfrey stopped suddenly and let out a joyful _Qwerk!_

Harriet looked to see what had interrupted their jousting practice and jumped off Mumfrey’s back, feeling pretty cheerful herself. 

Riding through the gates was her best friend Wilbur, and behind him on Hyacinth’s back was a small, terrified-looking hamster wearing a delicate silver crown. A princess in need of a rescue, clearly! Harriet, as a professional princess-rescuer, had gotten very good at picking them out, and her parents hardly ever got complaints anymore from huffy princesses whose dates or diplomatic visits she’d interrupted. (They hadn’t looked like they were having much fun anyway, Harriet had pointed out, but her mother only rubbed her forehead and told Harriet to go to her room.) 

“Hey, Wilbur! Hey, Hyacinth!” Harriet shouted, waving her sword in greeting. “Hey, cursed princess! You are cursed, aren’t you? And need me to set off on a quest to save you?”

The small, terrified-looking hamster turned her head in Harriet’s direction and squinted at her miserably. 

“I’m pretty sure she _is_ under a curse,” said Wilbur, sliding off Hyacinth and helping the other hamster dismount. She flailed on quailback until Wilbur grabbed her hand, then stumbled while he steadied her. 

“I was digging up potatoes one day -- our castle really needs a new barn, and the Gerbil King grows a _lot_ of potatoes and is always willing to pay for the help -- when this hamster just walked right into me. I know I’d been alone in the garden, but then there she was, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else. I asked her what was wrong, and she pointed to her throat, but even after Heady made her some honey-lemon tea, she _still_ couldn’t talk. And she looks so sad whenever she tries -- I think there really is an evil curse at work.”

“Naturally,” said Harriet briskly. “Well, tell me about it, cursed princess, and I’ll go and slay the evil witch for you. Or the giant, or the ogrecat, I’m not particular. Though I really do hope it’s a witch, because I already fought an ogre last week. Or a dragon!” Harriet looked at the small hamster hopefully. “Please say it’s a dragon! Nod once for dragon, twice for witch.” 

The cursed princess nodded twice, and Harriet let out a small sigh. She’d really been hoping to get a chance to fight a dragon again. (It would make up for the papier-mache incident with the four very grumpy rats.) 

“Well, lead the way, cursed princess!” Harriet said, turning back to Mumfrey and testing the edge of her sword.

“Shouldn’t we try to find out more _about_ the curse?” Wilbur asked. “It seems like there might be information that would be useful for you to know when you go after this witch. And we can’t just keep calling her ‘cursed princess’ -- that seems really rude.” 

The princess opened her mouth to speak, then held her hand to her throat again, looking even more miserable. 

“Can’t you just write it down?” Harriet asked irritably. Her mother was always going on about penmanship being important for a princess, so at the very least it could come in handy in the case of a voice-stealing curse. 

Wilbur produced some paper and a pencil from Hyacinth’s saddle bags, but the cursed princess only squinted at them pitifully. 

“Well?” said Harriet impatiently. She was happy enough to just keep calling the other hamster “cursed princess”, but she knew Wilbur would raise a stink if they didn’t at least give her a chance to introduce herself properly. Still, there were witches awaiting vanquishing and an evil curse that needed breaking, and maybe even some henchmen for Harriet to hit with a sword, and they were just standing here doing nothing. Harriet tapped her foot in irritation at the waste of valuable questing time. 

The cursed princess’s ears, which had been drooping dejectedly, suddenly perked up. She tapped her foot on the flagstones decisively. Tap. TAP-TAP. Tap-tap. Then an even longer series of complicated taps which sounded like the steps Harriet’s ballet instructor had tried to make her learn before tearing at his whiskers and storming out of the castle, muttering about people who were happy to prance around with a sword all day but were incapable of learning a simple gavotte. 

“QWERK!” said Mumfrey, which was Quail for “I recognize those taps! That’s Moles Code!” 

Mumfrey stamped his foot, and the princess stamped hers, back and forth, back and forth, tap-tap-tap, TAP, TAP-tap. Wilbur took the paper from the cursed princess’s hands and started trying to write down the short taps and the long taps, frowning and crossing out things a lot. Harriet waited impatiently for Mumfrey to translate. 

The princess’s name was Emily (Mumfrey said), and she was indeed under a terrible voice-stealing curse. (“That much was clear right away,” Harriet muttered. “Can’t we just go attack the witch already? I feel like I know everything I need to know.”) 

But Emily, now that she could communicate again, had a lot to say. She explained that she was really a mole, the princess of an underground kingdom, who had always been fascinated by the above-ground world. Her father’s realm happened to lie underneath the Gerbil King’s potato field, and Emily frequently tunneled up to the surface so she could peek out through a light scattering of earth, feel the sun on her face and the wind in her fur, and listen to above-ground people going about their business. 

One day she heard a very pleasant voice reciting poetry over the potato mounds (Harriet gave Wilbur a very disapproving look), and decided she simply had to meet this person. Harriet and Wilbur exchanged glances and sighed. They got the sense that Emily had been pretty lonely in her underground kingdom.

“So you went to an evil witch--” Harriet prompted. An only child herself, she was suitably sympathetic, but this tapping business was taking forever, and it was really time to hurry things along. 

Emily stamped the ground emphatically: TAP-tap, followed by lots more tapping. Harriet sighed. Clearly they were going to be here a while yet. 

The witch she had gone to wasn’t necessarily an _evil_ witch (Emily insisted through Mumfrey). Molegan Le Clay, who had lived in the tunnels on the very edges of the Mole Kingdom since time immemorial, had been a reasonably benevolent witch, dispensing enchanted swords to questing heroes and bringing perfectly ordinary wishes for ethereal beauty and good penmanship to princesses’ christenings. But when the rest of her colony disappeared, rumor said she had grown strange and frightening, and no-one had seen her in the Mole Kingdom for several generations of mole lives. 

So she had gone to, at most, a _potentially_ evil witch, the princess insisted. Molegan Le Clay had offered a magic spell to give her the shape of an above-ground rodent and had promised that Emily would be able to walk in the sun and experience life above the earth. But (“Obviously,” Harriet humphed) the magic came at a price: Emily had to give up her beautiful singing voice, the envy of all the mole-maids in the underground kingdom. And also, as it turned out, if she didn’t get an above-ground prince to fall in love with her in the space of three days (here Emily squinted guiltily at Wilbur, and Wilbur edged away to stand behind Hyacinth and Mumfrey), the magic of the spell would whisk her back underground, strip away all her fur, and turn her into a horrible, wizened thing, and she would have to stay with Molegan Le Clay forever. Emily shuddered delicately, wiping her eyes and blinking forlornly at the two hamsters. 

Worst of all, the spell had done nothing for her eyesight. In the cozy, well-defined world of the underground tunnels, she’d known exactly where she was and where she was going by the feel and taste of the earth. Here, everything was a crazy bright blur, too intense and too loud and too hot and too open, not at all the wonderful adventure she’d imagined. 

“Right!” Harriet said. “ _Now_ can we go vanquish this Molegan Le Clay? Lead the way, Emily! Uh, maybe underground?” she added, watching Emily eagerly stumble towards a wall. 

Emily nodded and looked around helplessly, tapping the courtyard stones around her. Harriet grabbed her hand and led her to the flower bed where her mother had been trying to grow grape hyacinths. This was for a good cause, and time was definitely of the essence. Her mother would almost certainly understand. And it’s not like her gardening projects ever worked out even when Harriet didn’t dig them up. 

Emily pressed her hands to the ground and started to dig. Her hamster paws were definitely not as well-suited to the task as a mole’s powerful claws, but Wilbur fetched shovels for himself and Harriet. (He’d been getting a lot of practice digging potatoes lately, and Harriet found it kind of fun to stab her spade into the ground, pretending she was lopping heads off ogres with every sweep). Even Mumfrey and Hyacinth helped. 

It was slow going at first, but not long after the hole became deep enough to hide Emily completely, the hamsters heard excited thumping from beneath the ground. 

“Qwer-rr-rk!” said Mumfrey, which was Quail for “Emily found a mole tunnel! Everyone get in the hole.” 

Harriet jumped in so eagerly, she landed on Emily and slightly squished the other princess, who fortunately was so happy to be back in her own element, she really didn’t seem to mind. Wilbur followed more cautiously, and the two quail descended into the dark with great reluctance.

“Qwerk,” said Hyacinth quietly, which was Quail for “I don’t like this at all.”

“Qwerrrk!” said Mumfrey, which was Quail for “I’ll protect you, Hyacinth! But I wish it weren’t so dark.”

Wilbur rummaged in Hyacinth’s saddlebags and produced a flashlight (which Harriet was pretty sure he used to read under the covers). The light didn’t spread very far, but it made them feel a bit better about the journey ahead. 

They followed Emily’s sure scramble through the mole tunnel. Harriet was disconcerted to learn that, in the uniform darkness underground, she really could not tell how much time had passed, except by her mounting impatience to hit something with her sword. She was pretty sure it had been hours, or possibly days, since she’d gotten to hit anyone with a sword, and it was definitely about time. 

Emily stopped suddenly and tapped the floor of the tunnel in an urgent burst of Moles Code. 

“Qwerk,” Mumfrey translated quietly. 

But Harriet had noticed the changes herself: in the texture of the tunnel walls, in the strange echo their footfalls had acquired, and in the weird smell now twitching her nose. Harriet brushed the dirt off her hands by wiping them on her vest and gripped her sword tighter. It was clear they’d come to the lair of Molegan Le Clay. 

In the ominous hush of the suddenly sinister tunnel, the hamsters and the quail watched a menacing shape approach, emerging from distorted shadows. The first thing Harriet noticed were the teeth, long and thin and curved like the kind of sword that Harriet’s parents had absolutely refused to buy her. The second thing she noticed was that the witch had no fur at all, only folds of wrinkly skin emerging from the depths of her black robes. Slithering to either side of her were two very large earthworms, who pulsed and undulated unpleasantly as they crawled after their mistress.

“EW!” exclaimed Harriet, whose forthrightness and curiosity frequently outstripped her politeness. “What kind of weird mole are _you_?” (She had gotten to know rather a lot of moles during that adventure with the dancing mouse princesses, had even met a mole witch, and all of them had fur. This Molegan Le Clay just looked _wrong_ , even for someone living underground.)

“I’m a naked mole rat,” the witch said with great dignity. “Which, for the benefit of highly impertinent hamsters, is not a kind of mole at all, nor a kind of rat. More importantly, however, I’m the person who has enchanted this young mole princess, and since she has failed to fulfill the conditions of our magical bargain, she now belongs to me. She will stay with me forever!” 

Molegan Le Clay raised a wrinkly arm holding a staff topped with a swirly snail shell. Harriet knew evil magic about to unfold when she saw it. She rushed at the witch and hit her with her sword. 

Harriet had gotten VERY good at hitting people with swords. She could reduce giants to whimpering just by waving her weapon menacingly, and very few people Harriet had actually whacked with her blade were inclined to continue fighting. But Molegan Le Clay seemed to feel no pain from the sword hit at all, and merely raised her evil staff higher. 

“Ver! Terre! Seize the princess!” the witch shouted, and the two earthworms converged on Emily, twining around her form. Wilbur rushed towards the mole princess and started trying to peel the worm henchmen away from her, while Hyacinth qwerked nervously nearby. 

Harriet leaped up and seized the collar of Molegan Le Clay’s robes -- but trying to choke her opponent wasn’t working any better than hitting the witch with a sword had been.

“That’s just not fair!” Harriet muttered through gritted teeth, trying not to look too closely at the witch’s own daunting set. “But time for a change of plans. Mumfrey!”

“Qwerk!” called Mumfrey, which is Quail for “I got her, Harriet!”

Topknot swinging wildly, the quail charged at Molegan Le Clay. His mantled wings knocked the magic staff from her hands and sent it skittering across the floor. At the witch’s shout of alarm, the earthworms slithered off Emily, heading for the staff, but they were too late. 

Harriet snatched up the staff and brought her foot down on the snail shell tip with a feeling of great satisfaction. Harriet was a sturdy little hamster, and had a lot of practice stomping on things, so the snail shell did not stand a chance. It shattered in a shower of clearly magical sparks. Harriet stomped on the fragments several more times, for good measure. 

“NO!” wailed Molegan Le Clay. “The mole princess is mine! I won’t let her leave!” 

“Actually,” said a quiet, melodious, and almost disgustingly lovely voice from somewhere behind Harriet, “I’d be happy to come visit you, so long as you ask nicely and don’t try to keep me here against my will. Or turn me into anything else. Turns out I really prefer being _me_.” 

Harriet looked back at her companions. Mumfrey was preening proudly while attempting to shield Hyacinth from the sight of the witch. Wilbur was trying to wipe earthworm damp off on his shirt. The other hamster had disappeared, and in her place was standing a pretty young mole in a silver crown, with a dainty little pink nose and very capable claws. The curse and the magical transformation must have both been broken when Harriet had smashed the snail shell. 

“You must get very lonely down here,” Emily went on. “And I definitely know how that feels. I know you’ve lost your colony of naked mole rats, and it’s not the same, but you can come to my father’s court whenever you want, if you promise not to trick anyone else into questionable magical bargains. And I will visit you too, if you like. Next time I’ll bring your earthworms some snacks. They’re really cute!” 

Molegan Le Clay was staring at the young mole in surprise, an expression that Harriet was starting to believe was a smile folding around those incredible teeth. Harriet couldn’t really blame her. There was just something about Emily’s voice that made you want to be her friend. Normally Harriet would regard that sort of thing with the gravest suspicion, but it did seem like Emily was in fact as sweet and charming a person as her voice implied. 

So it was not too great a wonder that Molegan Le Clay and her two henchworms (Harriet still couldn’t tell which one was Ver and which was Terre) ended up following them all to Emily’s father’s palace. 

King Claude was a rotund mole with a magnificent set of whiskers. He was wearing a worried expression and a fancy vest embroidered with crossed shovels surmounted by a star (“The coat of arms of the molearchy!” Wilbur whispered excitedly to Harriet, but Wilbur got excited about the strangest things). Once Emily explained what had happened, her father seemed not at all perturbed by the presence of Molegan Le Clay or (what was perhaps more surprising, in Harriet’s experience) by the presence of Harriet Hamsterbone. 

It turned out that King Claude was the second cousin of the witch Molezelda, and so fairly understanding about evil curses. Harriet peered suspiciously at the mole-king’s castle, but there was no sign of color-coded rooms or alphabetized children, and the millipedes in the kennels did not appear to be sorted by length, so Harriet relaxed. The radish sandwiches they were served with tea _were_ all cut into perfect hexagonal shapes, covering the entire plate, but Harriet let that slide. She liked tessellations herself, and the shape made it really easy to keep track of what fraction of her sandwich she had already eaten if she cut it into little triangles. 

“I’d like to come visit you at the potato field again,” Emily said shyly to Wilbur. “And I can teach you some mole poetry -- there’s nothing more inspiring than mole poetry for working with dirt.” 

“And I know a shrew fairy who could probably make you some magic glasses,” Harriet volunteered. “So you’d be able to see above-ground and not have to squint so much.” (It was possible the shrew fairy had not entirely forgiven Harriet for losing her invisible poncho that one time, but Harriet was confident of her abilities to be Harriet at people until they gave in and did what she wanted, so she wasn’t overly worried.) 

“Oh, that would be lovely!” said Emily. “I’m sure the above-ground world is more wonderful than I can appreciate right now.” 

“It is!” said Harriet fervently. “Maybe I can convince the shrew fairy to give you the ability to cliff-dive, too. Then you can really experience the best the world has to offer.” 

Wilbur and King Claude looked alarmed at this possibility, but Emily was tapping her claws thoughtfully on the table. At the mention of cliff-diving magic, Molegan Le Clay had perked up and was arranging the cut-up bits of sandwich on her plate into what were probably arcane patterns, clearly considering the problem herself. 

Harriet’s attention wandered away from the others. She was already thinking of the best way to bait the shrew fairy into appearing, what sort of pastry to bribe her with, and whether she could simultaneously get the the fairy to send her off on another quest. Now that Emily’s curse had been broken, her voice restored, and Molegan Le Clay’s henchworms lay curled at the mole princess’s feet in neat little earthworm spirals, it was definitely time for the next adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> Naked mole rats [are pretty incredible biologically](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_mole-rat), as I found out in the course of writing this story. I didn't mean to end up with a ridiculously overpowered antagonist, but can't really argue with mother nature...


End file.
